US Navy admits it needs massive investment to fight for Arctic seaways control

In anticipation of international military drills in the Arctic this year, the US Navy has developed a detailed plan to establish a massive presence in the region. The road map says urgent investments are required to avoid higher future costs.

The road map acknowledges that by 2020 the Bering Strait will
have ice-free conditions for about 160 days a year, whereas by
2025 the now-hypothetic Transpolar transit sea route through the
central part of the Arctic Ocean might become open for up to 45
days annually.

The document specifies a large number of detailed tasks and
deadlines the US must meet to compete on equal footing with other Arctic nations,
already lining up for tough competition for natural resources
under the Arctic seabed.

For example, total deposits of hydrocarbons in the Arctic have
been valued at over $1 trillion.

The plan includes deep research into the Arctic’s environment,
including into ice conditions, sea levels and weather
forecasting.

“The Arctic is all about operating forward and being ready.
We don't think we're going to have to do war-fighting up there,
but we have to be ready,” the US Navy's top oceanographer
and navigator Rear Admiral Jonathan White told Reuters.

Evaluation of the already existing infrastructure, such as ports,
airfields and service structures, as well as estimates of
hardware needed, such as communication satellites and
icebreakers, has also been included.

“We don't want to have a demand for the Navy to operate up
there, and have to say, ‘Sorry, we can't go,’” said White,
who also heads the US Navy's climate change task force.

But the document does not specify how much money implementing the
plan will require.

The US needs Arctic-class ice-breakers, port infrastructure,
satellite communication systems specialized for the polar region
and much more.

For example the US Coast Guard needs a modern powerful
icebreaker, construction of which is estimated $1 billion. This
is far less than the cost of the newest supercarrier, the USS
Gerald R. Ford, but the money has not been allocated so far.

“We're trying to use this road map to really be able to
answer that question,” White said, warning that it was
better to invest as soon as possible to avoid “bigger bills
in the future.”

White said that the Office of Naval Research and the Pentagon's
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are already funding
numerous Arctic-focused projects, predicting more public-private
projects would come in the next few years, despite the growing
pressure on the US military budget.

“As far as I'm concerned, the Navy and Coast Guard's area of
responsibility is growing,” White said. “We're growing a
new ocean, so our budget should be growing in line with
that.”

Arctic Ocean

Area: 14,056,000 km2

Coastline: 45,390 km

Maximum depth: 5,450 m

Water temperature: −1.8 °C

If the US plans to operate in ice-free, but still extremely harsh
conditions in the Arctic by 2030, it should hurry up and face
technological and financial challenges, White said.

“If we do start to see a rush, and people try to get up there
too fast, we run the risk of catastrophes,” he said, calling
the private sector to invest and move into the region.
“Search and rescue in the cold ice-covered water of the
Arctic is not somewhere we want to go.”

Natural resources

Experts say that new sea routes and natural resources under the
Arctic seabed will be controlled by those who get ready to
exploit them in advance, and that is where the US is already
lagging behind.

Norway and Russia, with which the US Navy will hold joint drills
this summer, can consider themselves well prepared for the
Arctic race already under way.

The US currently has fewer operational ocean-class icebreakers
than practically any other Arctic nation. Countries such as
Canada, Denmark and Norway all possess several ice-breaking
vessels, but all of them are limited to less than 10 such ships.

Today it is mostly the US nuclear submarines and UAVs that are
marking the US’s presence in the Arctic.

Russia has the longest sea border in Arctic, which determine
possession of a huge ice-breaking fleet. Russia possesses well
over 40 ice-breaking vessels, of them 11 nuclear powered
operated, and is actively constructingnew ones
to develop the Arctic region and in particular
the Northern Sea Route, the shortest way from Asia to
Europe.

To ensure full control over the promising trade route through Arctic waters, the
Russia military resumed a permanent Arctic presence last summer.